Jofebar Showroom
Pedro Bandeira

In 2005, Jofebar acquired a warehouse adjacent to its facilities, to build a showroom and expand its offices. The very precarious warehouse, in need of refurbishment to adapt it to new functions, led the Board of Directors to challenge its architect colleagues with a “contest of ideas”. Dulcineia Neves dos Santos, at the time a trainee architect (now working at Herzog & de Meuron) won with a proposal developed literally overnight on the basis of an improvised, homemade model.

As it was commented in the company by then: “The girl won the competition with a model made from a shoebox”. The design proposed the construction of a mezzanine in an open U shape for the main elevation, an inner courtyard and a curved wall that hid the oblique geometry of the rear limit of the built plot. The works started in less than a week, without giving the project time to bed in to gain shape and detail. The urgency of the work meant that most decisions were taken on site in real time, in close cooperation with the different participants.

The very pragmatic decision was taken from the start that the works would be something of a laboratory experimentation, where the different products developed in Jofebar would be shown but also tested. This provided a vitality that is reflected today in a space in permanent transformation, full of ephemeral, removable elements, effective in adapting to the different activities organised or hosted by Jofebar: exhibitions, workshops, presentations and conferences.

Despite the ever-changing space, the essence of the project remains mirrored in its key elements. The mezzanine continues to provide order to the space despite it not being a totally free element (its lower space was partially closed to set up small rooms). The central courtyard, inside, continues to stand out not only for the light it provides (due to the generous glazed surface of the PanoramAH! windows), but also for its shape – an archetype of the gabled house, here roofless, bringing the sun and rain into the now domesticated showroom. Unfortunately, the rear curved wall was never built, but the design of the interior furnishings has eventually contributed to the cohesion and comfort of the workspace.

The showroom area today is part of the image of a company that is proud to show what it does but also how it does it. Visitors see a space in which the products are displayed in a dynamic and experimental form. Despite the urgency, the symbolic “absence” of a design, Dulcineia Santos ended up cunningly and skillfully building an “experimental house”. And the story goes on…

SaveSave

Porto Senso
André Tavares

There are extraordinary places and extraordinary architects. An example of the former is the pine forest of Porto Senso, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast; of the latter, the architect Jean Nouvel, who has been at the forefront of the reinvention of French architecture since the early 1980s. For Nouvel, every project is different – a unique opportunity to transcend circumstance in pursuit of the sublime. What better place, then, than a nature reserve, a forgotten corner of the hectic Spanish coast, to put this approach to the test, exploring the themes which most interest him – such as the interfaces between man and machine, or the dematerialisation of construction – in order to conceive forms with the capacity to resolve conflicts.

Nouvel’s extensive body of work is a demonstration of how architecture can derive from conflicts an enormous potential to transcend itself, holding up a mirror to the present. In Porto Senso, the conflict arises from the desire to inhabit a natural site and the transformation this engenders. As in most of Nouvel’s designs (sometimes more so in his designs than in his works), the result of this intersection between place and the conception of something new is an intriguing project which challenges a priori ideas about methodologies for interventions in protected areas and potential for inventing the world.

Created in partnership with architecture studio Ribas & Ribas, the design, started in 2006, envisaged a gigantic complex of tourist apartments and a hotel facility (317 luxury apartments with an area of 35,400 m², a 5-star hotel with an area of 7,440 m², restaurants, spas, retail establishments and a marina). Nouvel’s design does not seek to conceal this colossal intervention, instead using it to further enhance the magic of the Mediterranean pine forests, using gabion walls to build vertically but burying the resulting structures in terraces so that inhabited spaces and the natural landscape become one. Circulation areas take on surprising forms: artificial caverns bathed in rays of light which blur the distinction between nature and artifice.

Only a single model apartment was built. However, even that small study is an ample demonstration of the efficiency of the technical solutions found for the challenges posed by the project. These include metal sliding doors which incorporate the same stone used to cover the walls, providing a camouflage effect while also revealing the presence of the building. Ultimately, the architect was overcome by the location (or the real estate crisis) and the project was never completed, but the technical execution of the model apartment offers a glimpse of how his fascination with the project could have given rise to somewhere new – and equally extraordinary.

André Tavares

SaveSave

SaveSave